An Overtime Conundrum

Posted on Tue Nov 20th, 2018 @ 10:04am by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox

Mission: Escaped Pantheons
Location: USS Hera, Deck 4, Flight Control Office
Timeline: 2395, en route to the Galactic Core

It was a little past 22 hundred hours, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Melanie Dox was still in her office. The room was empty as the rest of the flight control crew was off duty and very likely in bed with the exception of a young Ensign who drew the proverbial short straw of manning the helm overnight.

Standing in the center of the room with her thick, wavy auburn hair laying long at her shoulders, Dox held in her hands the flight control helmet that had become the focus of her obsession on this night. It was a heads-up display that projected for its wearer a view of the space outside of the ship as if the ship itself was invisible. It projected this view of space with a dazzling array of colors and patterns that most eyes couldn't perceive. It was an essential piece of equipment developed by Ensign Mona Gonadie that Dox felt would dramatically increase her ability to fly the Hera.

Their upcoming mission, only a couple of days away, would require Dox to pilot the ship in a region of space largely unexplored. An energy ribbon that had a nasty habit of destroying ships that got too close. Dox had a plan of how to fly within it, and this helmet was a big part of it. It enabled her to see the flow of the forces that governed space in real time. She could see space itself ebb and flow like a river and it was beautiful. But it was also extremely disorienting and overwhelming over time, causing nausea and headaches.

The time spent practicing was helping, but not enough. She knew she needed as much time as possible in the helmet to acclimate herself to it. She couldn't get sick when the mission was on. She wanted to talk with the ships Doctor in the morning to see if there was anything that could be done medically to lessen the issues she was trying to work out.

Placing the helmet down on the table, she sighed. She had been running simulations all afternoon and into the evening with the helmet and was getting better. Her time was improved and she was able to push past the disorientation and fly effectively within the simulated conditions. She had a mild headache from the effort now, but she had a different problem she was considering.

The helmet was snug and a little bulky as it was a prototype. And Ensign Gonadie had duties beyond rebuilding the rig in a couple of days when it worked just fine. As it turned out, the problem was a superficial one that Dox was struggling with. It was her hair.

The thick, curly locks that she wore were getting in the way of the helmet when worn in her usual upper bun. Worn down as it was now was a messy affair that wasn't quite to Starfleet regulations, but it enabled her to practice wearing the rig. Unfortunately, it also got tangled in the cables that connected the helmet to the ships' computers. Given time, Dox was sure Ensign Gonadie could refine the interface to work without cables and make the helmet fit better, but with the mission in just a couple of days it made the most sense to ensure that it worked as perfectly as it could in its current form without aesthetic modifications. So Dox was stalling.

Sighing as she pulled the mess of auburn rings back up into a bun on top of her head, she knew that there was one quick and easy solution to her conundrum. Melanie Dox needed a haircut.

She sat back at her still largely empty desk and called up the crew schedules for the upcoming day to see if she could schedule an appointment with the ship's barber as soon as she was off duty. Seeing an opening, she punched in her request and closed her eyes as she sent the 'send' button.

As the daughter of a Human Father and a Romulan Mother, Melanie Dox was raised Romulan until she was nearly 15 and had the trademarked haircut of a Romulan when she was sent to Earth to live with her paternal Grandparents. Being forced into a very different life was difficult and she learned quickly to try and conceal her Romulan heritage once she was attending public school with human teenagers that didn't particularly care for Romulans. So she practiced eliminating the residual accent she had when speaking English and she grew out her hair as quickly as she could and never looked back.

And while she wasn't planning on a haircut as short as Doctor Dael's, she knew that a shorter haircut would almost inevitably dredge up the memories of those first few turbulent years on Earth. Would make her look more 'Romulan'. But so far, her time on the Hera had been extremely positive. It was the first place in her Starfleet career where her crewmates didn't seem to harbor any animosity towards her for her heritage at all. And this sense of freedom was helping her to allow some of her childhood come back out without all of the shame she had learned as a teenager. She remembered that for nearly half of her 31 years, she didn't hate what she was and that felt good. So maybe this wouldn't be the end of the universe.

And thinking of that, she fell asleep in her desk chair. And for the first night in a week, she didn't have a nightmare.